


Five times Jimmy Price took care of Brian Zeller

by scap3goat (kriegswaffel)



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Kissing, M/M, Slow Build, drunk cuddling, in that one Jimmy probably feels like a reluctant saint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-23
Updated: 2014-08-23
Packaged: 2018-02-14 10:00:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2187534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kriegswaffel/pseuds/scap3goat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jimmy is more preceptive than most would think, especially of Brian's needs.</p><p>Not that Brian can't be perceptive as well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Coffee

**Author's Note:**

> My first (unbeta-ed) Preller fic since this pairing snuck up on me and took over my life.

Brian instinctively reached for the coffee when it was set down on his desk, not even looking up. The quiet chuckle told him it was Jimmy’s doing anyway.

After the first sip  a warmth settled in Jimmy’s belly. After the second a smile graced his lips.

It wouldn’t be until his cup would be half empty that he’d realize the smooth afterglow of sweet hazelnut, not the oppressing, sticky kind of hazelnut syrup.

He’d not realize that he’d never told Jimmy that he preferred the flavored sugar sachets.


	2. Dinner

“I think Jimmy messed something up. There’s something that smells decidedly fishy,” Beverly said while peering into the bag with their takeaway dinner

“I never mess up, young padawan,” Jimmy scolded her and slapped her wrist lightly with a fork. “That’s for Brian.”

Brian grinned and took the container from Jimmy. “Thanks. I hadn’t even realized it’s Friday.”

“What are friends for?” Jimmy replied mildly.

When Brian told them outrageous stories from Sunday school it was the first time Beverly heard that Brian had been brought up strictly catholic and while the religion part hadn’t stuck so much the habit of having fish on Friday had.

Jimmy looked entirely pleased with himself.


	3. Soup

The case had been long, grueling and their investigation conducted entirely in the mud created by the melting snow. Brian would swear that his boots would never be the same and that he better start breeding frogs in them now.

“Thanks for dropping me off,” Jimmy said quietly when Brian stopped in front of the older man’s home. “C’mon, there’s something I want to give you.”

Brian blinked blearily at Jimmy, at the dashboard clock, then back at Jimmy. “It’s nearly three in the morning.”

“It’ll only take a second, c’mon. I’ll even make you coffee, if you want to.”

The unusually earnest tone in Jimmy’s voice made Brian relent and he got out of the car, wincing when his stiff muscles protested. Six hours in the car wasn’t a good idea after wading through the marsh for four days. Yet he followed Jimmy, blinking rapidly when the hall lights came on in Jimmy’s house. Before he could even finish contemplating whether to take off his boots or not Jimmy was standing before him again.

The ‘again’ he deduced by the presence of a large tupperware container. “Here. You’ll need it in the morning.”

Brian blinked and lifted his hands, wincing again when they made contact with the frozen tupperware container. “What?”

“Trust me,” Jimmy replied with a small smile and patted Brian’s cheek. “Good night.”

Brian left with a quiet good night. He kept staring at the box on the passenger seat, not sure if he should even take it up into his apartment.

But Jimmy was right. He was extremely grateful for the gallon of homemade chicken soup when the morning came, dragging in the worst cold he’d ever had.


	4. Winter

When the first real chill of winter seeped into the normally rather pleasant coolness of late autumn Brian sighed and went to his chest of drawers, hoping to find at least something to stave off the cold wind he was expecting to meet on his next crime scene.

It wasn’t until he opened the drawer where he remembered to be a pair of thin wollen gloves that he realized he’d hoarded a lot more winter clothes than he ever had owned.

Running his fingers over a particularly nice, light grey scarf. He was pretty sure it was cashmere and he couldn’t for the life of him not remember ever having received something as exquisit as a gift or even having bought it for himself.

A realization dawned on him when he found two more scarfs, three pairs of gloves besides his own and two hats - he was lousy with bringing his own winter wear to crime scenes and subsequently Jimmy had loaned him items. Items that Brian had obviously never returned.

In a weirdly sentimental move Brian lifted the scarf to his face and sniffed it. There was a faint hint of Jimmy’s cologne clinging to the fabric and Brian smiled softly.

He picked out one of the other scarfs, wondering whether Jimmy would recognize it and demand to get it back.


	5. In Bed

Beverly knew all the places where the cocktails were large, good and yet not too pricey. The bar’s lights were turned down and the murmur of the other guests talking over the music lulled Brian into a comfortable hazy state of mind. The cocktails helped a lot.

Eventually Bev shook his arm though and he blinked blearily at her.

“Hm?”

“I think it’s time to go home, hon,” Beverly grinned.

Jimmy interjected, “I’ll take him home.”

Beverly’s relief was visible for a moment, then she smiled. “Well, it’s on the way for you, isn’t it? Thanks, Jim.”

Brian looked between them and smiled. He wanted to reply that he didn’t need someone to bring him home, but he found himself a little more unsteady than he’d wanted to so he swallowed his protest.

“I need the bathroom,” was what he said instead and got up. He was a little wobbly and grateful for reaching the bathroom in one piece, not peeing himself and returning to the table unharmed.

Beverly was gone and Jimmy was waiting with Brian’s coat. “Let’s go.”

Of course Brian started giggling when Jimmy helped him into the coat and then led him outside.

“Hm. My last cocktail had rosemary and ginger. My mouth tastes like I drank some nice sunday roast.”

Jimmy chuckled. “Come on, this way.”

They kept walking, Brian babbling and Jimmy keeping him steady.

“How come you’re so sober, you drank as much as me?” asked Brian while waiting for Jimmy to unlock the door to Brian’s apartment. For some reason he wanted to wrap his arms around Jimmy and just cuddle him. It’d been a while since he’d cuddled.

“You had one more. And maybe I’ve got a little more practice.” Somehow it sounded sad and that reinforced Brian's need to cuddle.

Brian nodded slowly and let Jimmy lead him inside. He was deposited in the kitchen with a glass of water while Jimmy went to the bathroom. “You’re a bodybuilder, you’ve got to have some mineral supplements here,” he called.

That only served for Brian to start giggling. “Do I look like a bodybuilder? But there’s something…”

“In the bathroom cabinet. Found them,” Jimmy replied and came back to the kitchen. He dropped a magnesium supplement into the glass of water. “Keep drinking. And between the two of us you're the one who actually goes to the gym.”

“Yessir,” slurred Brian and threw his hand up in a lazy salute.

“And when you’re done we’re taking you to bed.”

It took a moment until Brian’s lips curled into a grin and he swallowed the rest of the sizzling water down. “What an offer.”

Jimmy fluttered his eyelids at Brian. “But we’re only sleeping. I don’t kiss on a first date.”

Brian couldn’t help giggling some more and only stopped when Jimmy pressed a new glass of water into his hand. “Hey!”

“Your punishment for giggling.”

Brian tried his best pout, but between the alcohol and Jimmy’s experience with Brian’s moods it didn’t anything to sway him.

“It’ll help you feel better in the morning.”

Any other time a flirtatious comment would have come to Brian, but right now his brain was incapacitated.

The second glass didn’t go down as easy as the first, Brian regarding his tummy for a moment and trying to will it into submission.

Eventually he let Jimmy lead him to the bedroom by his elbow. “Get into bed.”

Brian saluted again and started to undress, holding onto Jimmy to get off his socks. He didn’t notice how close they were until he felt Jimmy’s breath on his cheek and his hands tentatively on Brian’s hips. Brian contemplated the situation for a moment, how one of his own arms had slung itself around Jimmy’s shoulders to keep himself steady.

It probably said much for Jimmy’s patience when he let a half-naked Brian drag him onto the bed and cuddle him close like an oversized stuffed toy. Brian closed his eyes and fell asleep, a soft ‘good night’ on his lips.


	6. ... and the one time Brian took care of Jimmy

Over the last months it had become clearer to Brian that something had changed with Jimmy. It wasn’t that he was considerably different, but between them there was something that Brian couldn’t really grasp. So he began to think about their relationship and what had changed between them.

The conclusion he came to over a bottle of wine and some mindless television playing in the background was not as startling as it should have been.

Jimmy Price was in love with Brian.

He brought him coffee just the way he liked it without having been told how he liked it, remembered all of Brian’s quirky eating habits, looked out for him whether it was about Brian’s health or happiness and - most recently - had not protested at all at getting tackled by Brian in boxer shorts and pinned to the bed for the whole night.

In fact Jimmy had looked so content and rested the next morning that Brian had briefly wondered what had happened.

All in all they were still as comfortable with each other as they had been before, but sometimes there was a hint of something in Jimmy’s eyes when he looked over at Brian gesticulating over a corpse. Something that Brian had taken note of and wanted to explore, categorize and have Jimmy only ever direct at him.

If he was honest with himself Brian knew that even drunk he’d never cuddle up to just anyone.

The only thing now was to figure out how to make his move.

The easiest if scariest and bluntest version was to just go and lay one on Jimmy. But Brian guessed that Jimmy would appreciate something with a little more style better.

/////*****/////*****/////*****/////*****/////*****/////*****/////

The forensics' Christmas Party was one of the few occasions where Jimmy didn’t mind mingling with more colleagues than Bev and Brian. A good two to three dozen people always came, there was plenty of booze and enough food to leave him satisfied.

Of course he still mostly hung around with Bev and Brian, though both of them were rather sociable and received all the more attention for the lateness of the evening and the amount of alcohol consumed.

“Okay, hey! Hey! Listen!” giggled Marcy, a cute girl from the toxicology lab. “Time for our secret santa!”

Jimmy was one of the few people who didn’t participate so he turned back to the open bar and the buffet, glad to have it to himself for the time being.

He nearly chocked when he heard his name.

When he didn’t react right away Marcy read his name out once again, her voice puzzled as if she wasn’t sure she was right.

As insecure as she sounded were Jimmy’s steps when he walked forward to receive the small parcel. Indeed the tag read Jimmy Price in carefully printed letters. He turned it around in his fingers as if it would bite were it left to its own devices.

Jimmy’s confusion grew when he unpacked the parcel once everyone else had settled with theirs.

It held nothing but a mistletoe, something he wasn’t sure how to feel about simply because he didn’t know what it meant.

“Whatcha got?” Brian asked innocently from his right and peered down at the mistletoe.

“Someone wants to give you a chance to snog more,” Beverly concluded from Jimmy’s left. “Just hold it whoever you wanna lay one on,” she giggled, lifted Jimmy’s hand so they both stood under it and kissed his cheek before dancing off to whomever she’d been wooing before.

Brian just shrugged and Jimmy felt anger well up inside him. Whoever got him this Christmas present obviously wanted to embarrass him in some way. He’d thought they were better colleagues than that. Despite how much he wanted to hold his mistletoe over Brian he turned towards the bar again and left Brian to whomever wanted to get in his pants.

Thankfully there was still enough booze left.

/////*****/////*****/////*****/////*****/////*****/////*****/////

An hour later Jimmy had cooled off enough to put away the untouched glass of scotch in his hand and seek out his favourite retreat in the building. It wasn’t something worth getting pissed over, he concluded while climbing the stairs to the roof.

He was surprised to find himself not alone, though.

“Sorry,” he stuttered at the person standing in the darkness, wondering whether someone would come up here to make-out. “I’ll be off…”

“Please,” he heard Brian’s voice and instinctively Jimmy stepped forward. “It’d be nice if you stayed.”

So Jimmy stayed, walked towards Brian even. When he was close enough he could see Brian was smiling softly.

“Want some coffee?” Brian asked softly and held out a thermos to Jimmy. “If we plan staying here longer…”

Jimmy blinked at the thermos and took it from Brian, cradling it in his hands. He only looked up when he felt a soft scarf around his neck, Brian taking care to wrap it gently around Jimmy’s neck. It took him a moment to realize that it was his own cashmere one that he’d loaned Brian a year ago and never asked for it to be returned.

There was something soft in Brian’s eyes and his smile was gentle when he caught Jimmy’s eyes, Brian’s hands lingering lightly on Jimmy’s shoulders, fingertips still brushing against the soft scarf.

“Uhh…” was everything Jimmy could manage, conclusions clicking in place in his head and leaving him unable to understand any of what was happening. Could it really be…?

Any conclusion and doubt went out of the window when Brian leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips, pulling away for a moment before coming back for a more heated exchange. Jimmy whimpered softly when he felt the briefest flick of Brian’s tongue against his lips and tilted his head so they’d fit together better.

They were a little breathless when Brian pulled away, still smiling. “I was almost afraid you wouldn’t come.”

“How did you know I would?”

Brian smiled and pulled Jimmy over to where he’d set up warm blankets and more coffee. “You always come here when you’re upset. I wanted to get you alone and give you a special Christmas gift.”

Jimmy blinked down at Brian who’d sat down on the blankets and patted the ground next to him. Of course Jimmy followed the invitation and instantly got pulled into Brian’s arms, Brian’s lips brushing against his temple.

“You sure did,” replied Jimmy and sipped on the coffee to pass some time. He wanted nothing more than to keep kissing Brian, but a little part of him was still afraid that Brian would shy away from him.

“And was it something you’d wanted for Christmas?” Brian asked carefully and wrapped a blanket around the two of them.

“Dear god, if I’d known I could have this I’d have kept writing letters to Santa,” chuckled Jimmy and melted a little more against Brian’s warmth.

“Merry Christmas then,” whispered Brian and tilted Jimmy’s chin up, losing himself in a long kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is the first (published) fanfic for my new OTP. Hope you liked it. :D


End file.
